Stand in a doorway and look at two patios. The cheap set has thin powder coated legs already freckled with rust, cushions gone flat and a little moldy at the seams, and everything's slightly too small for the table, like a dinner party where someone forgot two chairs. The good set has real weight to it, frames in aluminum or teak that sit solid when you bump the table with your hip, and cushions that spring back when you stand up. You feel the difference before you sit down. One says someone gave up on this space in June. The other says someone actually uses it.
Think about where the sun actually lands before you think about style. A small apartment balcony that gets blasted all afternoon wants something light enough to move into shade, maybe a bistro set you can drag a few feet, not a heavy sectional that becomes a permanent sauna. A proper backyard patio with some tree cover can carry a full dining set and a couple of lounge chairs without looking crowded. Covered porches are the most forgiving because fabric and wood last longer out of direct weather, so that's where I'd risk a bolder cushion color if your style leans that way. If you get real winters, anything left out needs to either handle freeze thaw or get covers and a storage plan, because I left a wicker set out one November in Atlanta thinking the covered porch would protect it, and the cushions still mildewed by February.
Measure twice before you order anything. Walk out the door you'd actually carry furniture through and measure it, because a sectional that looks modest online has stopped more than one delivery dead at a French door. Then measure the space itself and leave at least three feet of walking room around a dining set, more if you're near a grill or a step. The mistake almost everyone makes is buying to fill the whole patio, which leaves zero room to pull a chair out, and the second mistake is going too small out of nervousness, which leaves a six person table looking lost on a wide deck. Scale the set to the walking path, not the empty space.
A bright teal or coral cushion set clashes badly with a red brick house with no neutral in between, it just fights the brick and loses. It also looks wrong shoved against heavily patterned outdoor tile, two bold things in one small footprint reads chaotic, not brave. What it sits well with in an ordinary backyard is plain decking or plain stone, a few potted plants in terra cotta, and a rug in one solid color underneath to ground the whole arrangement. Next to it, I'd put a simple outdoor side table and a lantern for evenings, nothing fancy, just something to hold a drink and throw a little warm light once the sun's gone.